The message
from ojunk (Bill Spohn) contains these words:

The former curator of a large park here in Vancouver tells me that when they
put out new Rhododendrons they had gardeners strip all of the blooms for the
first few years, until they got big enough to be a bit hard to steal,
otherwise
they would have gone home in someone's trunk.

It's very common in the UK, both from private gardens and ones open to
the public. One near here, which is famous for its rare rhododendrons,
doesn't label newly planted ones. They are identified to the garden
staff by a tag with a number, and don't get a name label until the plant
is too big and well established for easy lifting.

Janet

The message
from uckoff (theoneflasehaddock) contains these words:

Subject: Plant thief!
From: Janet Baraclough..
Date: 4/29/2004 8:54 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

I've found that snowdrops and daffodils work well; that was in an area
where the long roadside verges were tractor-trimmed every summer for
safety reasons, so anything summer flowering would have been pointless.

Daffodils spread, and stay for years. Another non-native plant to keep
to your
own gardens

Load of cod, haddock.

If you must, try lily-of-the-valley, or periwinkles (Vinca) or wood
lilies, or
trout lilies, or whatever is NATIVE where you are.

None of those is native here.

Wild narcissus (narcissus pseudonarcissus), which is the one I planted,
is native here. Snowdrops arrived in Britain about 2000 years ago; while
they are not strictly native, they are widely naturalised.

Janet

In article , "Cereus-validus"
wrote:

Not true, bluenose.

Nurserymen need to get permission to dig up Cactaceae in Arizona. Nowadays,
they are rescue missions to relocate the plants before the valuable
succulents are plowed under by disinterested land developers. Blame it on
suburban sprawl by people who have no reason to live in the desert, land
speculators and greedy politicians not the nurserymen.

Oh cum'on. You know too much about cacti to believe that for a second.
Someone gets a liscense to "salvage" a couple dozen plants & suddenly his
stocks are up so high he can ship scores of them around the country
wholesale. Or they obtain with dubious documentation cacti poached in the
Chihuahua or Sonoma, & illegal stocks become indistinguishable from legal,
but the vast majority were not legally taken. And cacti alleged to be
nursery-grown have mixed into them strange looking scarred plants that
were obviously taken from the wild -- but try to prove it, it's a
completely safe type of theft. Or cacti liscensed for collection in one
state or county are actually collected in a state or county that
prohibits it, & no way to prove where they came from once the poachers get
them to the highway, putting them into the marketplace complete with the
"proper" papers attached so that poached plants appear to be legal.
Vendors use every trick in the book to turn a dozen legally gotten snakes,
lizards, & cacti into hundreds or thousands of profitable specimens; many
are smuggled to other countries for sale to cactus collectors.

The organization TRAFFIC which attempts to monitor the international plant
& wildlife trade says the problem of poaching plants in the
Texas-Arizona-Mexico Chihuahua Desert is on the rise. Many of the plants
reach the international market, primarily in England, but also in Germany,
Sweden, Spain, & Italy, the poachers finding it easy to unload thousands
of plants, then going back for thousands more. TRAFFIC warns that at the
present level of combined legal & illegal collecting, the Chihuahua will
experience a complete ecological break-down for loss of a key component of
its ecology.

Cactus clubs number close to 500, representing an estimated 40,000
club-oriented collectors worldwide. They all give lipservice to legality &
conservation, but when sleezy poachers join the clubs, the membership
treats them as superheros. Each new batch of cacti of dubious provenance
brought before the eyes of the lucky cactophiliacs brings about orgies or
feeding frenzies of eager purchases. The clubs even arrange international
field trips to make sure increasing numbers of future poachers know
exactly where to find these plants.

The problems of incidental damage from foot traffic or off-road vehicles,
tourist thefts, & willful destruction of plants by teenagers or gun
owners, are all dwarfed by the problem of poaching. Ron Kass of the Bureau
of Land Management in Utah says wholesale poaching is on the rise in all
western states because of its extreme profitability & low likelihood of
being caught. Kass says the present level of protection cannot possibly
save these plants from wholesale commercial theft. Kass says that several
sensitive species face extinction for no othe reason than the trade in
illegal specimens. Tom Clark of the Capitol Reef National Park confirms
that his attempts to protect even a small area of the park from poachers
has failed utterly, despite the use of small transponders imbedded in key
plants hoping to make them trackable after they are stolen. The poachers
are just too clever, & the plants cannot be guarded night & day -- bnot
even in a small area where the attempt was at least being made to protect
the cacti. Outside this small area there's even less chance of poachers
being caught.

Ted Cordery of the Bureau of Land Management in Arizona says that the
smaller species are being taken en masse from the deserts & parks because
the plants are easy to remove, easy to hide, & have a ready black market.
But what is more surprising, the poachers will arrive by night with flat
bed trucks & hydrraulic lifts, & remove large saguaro cacti, which Ross
says are valued at $100 per foot to landscapers, with bonuses paid for
each arm.

Dr. Mark Dimmitt of the Arizona-Sonoma Museum says there are several cases
of new species being documented, & as soon as the information is
published, poachers arrive to drive the new discovery to the brink of
extinction, feeding the domestic & international trade in rare cacti.

Nursery owners invariably tell a different story of how well the cacti are
protected, & can sometimes trundle out the proper papers to prove their
stocks are legal. But there is really no way of telling what the
provenance of each plant really is, & as Ron Kass said, the current
methods of protection have proven to be absolutely worthless in stopping
this trade domestically & internationally in American cactus species.

The problem is gigantic. I cannot fathom how you as a cactus lover could
so overtly misrepresent what is really happening as "rescue" from
developers. It's the kind of excuse that makes those 500 cactus clubs
lionize the criminals in their midst. It is international organized crime,
&protection even in guarded national parks has been ineffective for one
reason only: commercial poaching.

-paghat the ratgirl

wrote in message
...
Any one else have a problem with plants that grow legs and walk away?

Genevieve
zone 9


http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/stra...palmtrees.html


i hate to say this, but evil nurserymen have been stealing saguaro cacti
for
more than 30 years!! they dig up young babies and take them back to their
city floral shops and/or nurseries and sell them for HOUSE PLANTS!

and then, too, are the ever wise folk of phoenix, arizona who decided to
turn phoenix into an agricultural wonderland and proceeded to put in
irrigation canals which aid in adding humidity to a land which is supposed
to be arid and they, too, have aided in the "stealing" of saguaro and
other
cacti by killing the native climate. saguaro and other cacti need
aridity;
too much humidity causes their death.

gee, arizona may have to change their state tree from the saguaro to
russian
olives before much longer. (sigh) another wonderful mechanical disease.
we can add this to the list with kudzu and water hyacinths.


--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

One near here, which is famous for its rare rhododendrons,
doesn't label newly planted ones. They are identified to the garden
staff by a tag with a number, and don't get a name label until the plant
is too big and well established for easy lifting.

I have seen people look at a name tag and then pocket it so they will be able
to remember the name when out shopping.

Argh!

We used to call the theft of plants from newly planted beds
"Finger blight".
Mostly the people who steal plants are not those who cant afford to buy
plants, though there have been several instances in this part of Wales of
people waking up in the morning to find that their New hedge has gone walk
about, though there was one case of a 2yr old hedge around 60 ft long that
went in one night, and the ground was levelled out where it had been.

David Hill
Abacus nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

"Bill Spohn" wrote in message
...

I have seen people look at a name tag and then pocket it so they will be
able
to remember the name when out shopping.

what, don't these people have camera phones?

sheesh.

-kelly

"culprit" wrote in news:c6sa6h$fs7de$1@ID-
58739.news.uni-berlin.de:


"Bill Spohn" wrote in message
...

I have seen people look at a name tag and then pocket it so they will be
able to remember the name when out shopping.

what, don't these people have camera phones?

sheesh.

-kelly



A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the future. It
showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for something and it
would make something right out of thin air! For instance, an distinguished
looking bald guy would say "Computer, Earl Grey, hot" and the machine
would spit out a cup of tea, cup and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future looked
kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

"Salty Thumb" wrote in message
...
"culprit" wrote in news:c6sa6h$fs7de$1@ID-
58739.news.uni-berlin.de:


"Bill Spohn" wrote in message
...

I have seen people look at a name tag and then pocket it so they will
be
able to remember the name when out shopping.

what, don't these people have camera phones?

sheesh.

-kelly



A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the future. It
showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for something and it
would make something right out of thin air! For instance, an
distinguished
looking bald guy would say "Computer, Earl Grey, hot" and the machine
would spit out a cup of tea, cup and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future looked
kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

It sounds like the Jetsons.

One day my neighbours shoo'd away two little girls picking flowers from one
of my front flower beds. Little wenches.

Lisa

"Cereus-validus" wrote in message
om...
Be paranoid.

Plant theft is becoming an all too frequent occurrence.
There are some out there who wouldn't give stealing plants a second
thought.

There are even reports of commercial nurseries being robbed of plants.
Some
nurseries that used to allow customers to roam freely among their stock
plants will no longer do so unless they are closely chaperoned by staff.


"Genevieve" wrote in message
om...
I bought 4 nice Gerber Daisies to plant around the ugly street sign in
my front yard - yellow, white, pink and orange.

A week later, the orange Gerber plant was gone and only the hole in
the ground was left. I can't imagine what happened to it. Would an
animal run off with a plant like that? I'm thinking someone wanted the
orange daisy and just absconded with it.

I should have put it in the back yard, but who thought I'd have a
problem like that?! Now I'm wondering about the Hydrangeas I'm
planning for my front beds. Will they be safe? I know - it probably
won't happen again and I'm being paranoid.

Any one else have a problem with plants that grow legs and walk away?

Genevieve
zone 9

A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the future. It
showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for something and it
would make something right out of thin air! For instance, an
distinguished
looking bald guy would say "Computer, Earl Grey, hot" and the machine
would spit out a cup of tea, cup and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future looked
kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

It sounds like the Jetsons.

Actually, that sounds like Captain Pickard on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Great show.

On 4/30/04 8:38 AM, in article , "Meagan M
Eller" wrote:

A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the future. It
showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for something and it
would make something right out of thin air! For instance, an
distinguished
looking bald guy would say "Computer, Earl Grey, hot" and the machine
would spit out a cup of tea, cup and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future looked
kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

It sounds like the Jetsons.

Actually, that sounds like Captain Pickard on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Great show.

Sarcasm and or irony! even my neighbor's 3 year old knows who Captain
Picard is!
C

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

On 4/30/04 8:38 AM, in article ,
"Meagan M Eller" wrote:

A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the
future. It showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for
something and it would make something right out of thin air! For
instance, an distinguished looking bald guy would say "Computer,
Earl Grey, hot" and the machine would spit out a cup of tea, cup
and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future
looked kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

It sounds like the Jetsons.

Actually, that sounds like Captain Pickard on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Great show.

Sarcasm and or irony! even my neighbor's 3 year old knows who Captain
Picard is!
C


Who is Captain Pickard/Picard? The show I am talking about is something
I saw in South America over a couple of days. I was supposed join my
professor, Donald Chu-Bellefitte on an archaeological dig, but had stayed
behind to attend my brother's wedding. Anyway, one of old Don's
important equipment orders came after he had left, so he asked me to
bring it, and I got to go anyway.

On my way to the rendezvous point, one of the roads got washed out, and I
had to wait several days while the water subsided. Luckily (?), one of
the families in the area invited me to stay with them while I waited.
The father, an old codger, had a small TV hooked up to a
bicycle/generator and he managed to wheedle me into riding it so his kids
could watch TV. I guess it was the least I could do. So I would catch
up on reading some journals while riding the bike and the kids would
watch this TV show. For some reason, I always thought it was funny when
I heard the distinguished looking bald guy say "Computador, un té de el
Earl Grey, caliente!". Like he had a tea addiction or something.

One of things I didn't like about the future was how there were still so
many diseases. For instance, there was a black guy that must have had
some huge fungal infection on his forehead and another albino dude who
surely would have immediately died of melanoma if he were ever to step
foot on a beach.

On 4/30/04 12:02 PM, in article ,
"Salty Thumb" wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

On 4/30/04 8:38 AM, in article ,
"Meagan M Eller" wrote:

A couple of years ago, I saw this television program about the
future. It showed people talking to a machine and you'd ask it for
something and it would make something right out of thin air! For
instance, an distinguished looking bald guy would say "Computer,
Earl Grey, hot" and the machine would spit out a cup of tea, cup
and all.

Another interesting thing was a lot of the spaceships in the future
looked kind of like caterpillar cocoons.

It sounds like the Jetsons.

Actually, that sounds like Captain Pickard on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. Great show.

Sarcasm and or irony! even my neighbor's 3 year old knows who Captain
Picard is!
C


Who is Captain Pickard/Picard? The show I am talking about is something
I saw in South America over a couple of days. I was supposed join my
professor, Donald Chu-Bellefitte on an archaeological dig, but had stayed
behind to attend my brother's wedding. Anyway, one of old Don's
important equipment orders came after he had left, so he asked me to
bring it, and I got to go anyway.

On my way to the rendezvous point, one of the roads got washed out, and I
had to wait several days while the water subsided. Luckily (?), one of
the families in the area invited me to stay with them while I waited.
The father, an old codger, had a small TV hooked up to a
bicycle/generator and he managed to wheedle me into riding it so his kids
could watch TV. I guess it was the least I could do. So I would catch
up on reading some journals while riding the bike and the kids would
watch this TV show. For some reason, I always thought it was funny when
I heard the distinguished looking bald guy say "Computador, un té de el
Earl Grey, caliente!". Like he had a tea addiction or something.

One of things I didn't like about the future was how there were still so
many diseases. For instance, there was a black guy that must have had
some huge fungal infection on his forehead and another albino dude who
surely would have immediately died of melanoma if he were ever to step
foot on a beach.

Sputter and spew!

I figure plant theft, at least from your garden, should be punishable by
burying the miscreant up to his chin in a dung heap on a hot day!

Wouldn't your humus heap do as well?

zemedelec

Be paranoid.

Plant theft is becoming an all too frequent occurrence.
There are some out there who wouldn't give stealing plants a second thought.

There are even reports of commercial nurseries being robbed of plants. Some
nurseries that used to allow customers to roam freely among their stock
plants will no longer do so unless they are closely chaperoned by staff.


"Genevieve" wrote in message
om...
I bought 4 nice Gerber Daisies to plant around the ugly street sign in
my front yard - yellow, white, pink and orange.

A week later, the orange Gerber plant was gone and only the hole in
the ground was left. I can't imagine what happened to it. Would an
animal run off with a plant like that? I'm thinking someone wanted the
orange daisy and just absconded with it.

I should have put it in the back yard, but who thought I'd have a
problem like that?! Now I'm wondering about the Hydrangeas I'm
planning for my front beds. Will they be safe? I know - it probably
won't happen again and I'm being paranoid.

Any one else have a problem with plants that grow legs and walk away?

Genevieve
zone 9